It's been tough for Punters up to now but
 

you ain't seen nothing yet.
The beginning of the end for Racing,have you noticed the Stats breakup
of where the betting dollar is going these days.
No wonder mind you, take a look at the races, 99% are either Maidens or Classes 1 through 6 and now we won't be asking what will win R6, or the
3 o'clock at Flemington, but the 0-62 or the 0-86.
That's me out after 50 plus years.

Since 2004 the Powers that be introduced RBH (Ratings based handicapping)
and from now, Dec. 2006, they are adding this little charmer called
RBP ( Ratings based Programming).
Apparently it's to help trainers run their horses via a Rating rather than Class.

I CAN HARDLY WAIT to see how it's going to help the poor old Punters.

Regards.

A tough spring racer but when did 'helping the poor old punter' ever get a look in by the managing Moguls in Horse Racing ?

As for class, forget the [ever changing] ******'s breakfast class rating floor-show and watch the race prices [what the horse is racing for and what price races it has won]. That will tell you more about 'class' than any class system the powers that be whip up.

Don't think much has changed
 

Racer

I've not really noticed any difference since the introduction of RBP earlier in the month. How do you think things will change?

I'm more a technical analyst than a form fundamentalist, so for me it's the market movements that matter. I don't see alot of point doing the form these days when everybody else does it for you.

Good Luck

Pixie

im with you racer, the wall to wall rubbish racing is suposed to be an attraction for the new breed of punters? me thinks not

im mainly a carnival punter these days, always an opportunity or 2 when the big races roll around, & lo & behold i can actualy enjoy myself! something i came to realise i wasnt doing trying to chase down the next winner at kyneton

poker, now there another story...

Gday All

I am not sure the restricted by rating races are intended to help the punter.. They are there to help owners and trainers run horses who may have peaked in performance and can no longer win in their designated class.. and I think it is a good idea for the owners and trainers

As an example, say you have a very average horse running around in the country somewhere, and along the way it fluked a CL5 win, maybe it was a race with 5 or 6 duds in it? Who knows? But the thing is you are now stuck running your horse in class 5 or higher, and it has no chance of winning again.. Because your horse really only has the ability of a class 4 runner.. I would think that is a dissincentive to keep the horse racing.. These restricted rating races allow you to run with horses that have achieved a rating much the same as yours in their career. AND it gives you a real chance of winning some prize money... something that hasn't been the case b4.. I can't see that as a bad thing... As for punting, it makes it hard, but that is the challenge isn't it... or alternatively, leave the race alone if you don't like em...

I must declare an interest here, I am talking from a slightly biassed point of view as my partner is a trainer..

Well Crash it will be very interesting to see what happens but I just can't see it helping anyone. As you mention, to look at the bullion side of racing - but even that might well be a farce because as you know, the MAJOR thing that matters in racing's final analysis is one horse's goods, RELATIVE to each of the rest of the runners in the race, and that's where the fun is going to begin.
So we shall see how good the odds
makers and the bettors are, as they try to wade through that to which xptdriver refers in his #5 post - I'm thinking it will be hilarious for a trainer
(or anyone else)trying to
ascertain his chances of pulling off a betting coup when he looks at another
runner in his horse's race and sees one is going up from o-62 to 0-74, the next one is going down from 0-86 to 0-68 and so on throughout the field,THEN, he moves to the relative weights of each runner.
I mean it's going to be real easy to whack a Gorilla on his runner,(and I don't think) and maybe all this is just what the powers that be are intending.
Can you just remind me Crash how long racing has been in existence and how ************ marvelous it's been ?
and then wonder why in hell are they determined to fiddle about in this manner now 2000 years later, I'm sure you and all the other lads have noticed the dreadful slide in quality runners.

Stugots mentions being a carnival punter and it's no wonder because that's the only time any decent horses are going around and fortunately\apparently
they are not intending to fiddle about with OPENS or GROUP races - YET !!!

Angry Pixie deals with the odds and %'s by the sound of it, and I will hope
that he can report in 12 months to there being no change in his hopefully winning ways.To your question Pix., I refer you to the above from hilarious on down.
We all know that approx. 30-33% favs. win each year regardless of which track in the WORLD, upto now, - it will be interesting to note if that approx. continues.( mind you I've always been slightly astounded that those fav. approxs' vary so little across the world).
Pixie, is there any chance,with you being a tech. analyst, of taking a stab at why the latter matter might be so please ?

Regards.

The whole class system is a ballsup in Australia, and every year it get's more confusing. Even some trainers are now confused and get fined for nominating ineligible horses, so that speaks volumes.

Each State has it's own way of doing things, and even some raceclubs.

Then you have various grades of the same bloomin' class, so you can have a $5,000 Class 6 or a $20,000 Class 6.

Prizemoney cannot give an accurate guide to class of race anymore apart from Country/Metro.

And then they give more of a penalty to a horse that won first up, than a horse that won second up in Perth - which makes no logical sense at all.

They need to have an industry standard criteria, like any other industry.

Then handicap the horses based on performance +/-. If a horse fails to run well in it's current class, so that the ratings go below a certain point, then it should be eligible to go back to the lower grade.

So there should be a race class figure and a horse class figure, but it should be consistent across the board.

Fairly straightforward I would have thought, but the powers that be decide "let's do something different". And they successfully confuse the trainers and punters which detracts interest, quality, and turnover.

WAKE UP!

When you consider who finances the races [yes we do, but we don't make the rules], why would it be in the TAB's interest to allow those it [indirectly] employs, to make things easier for the punter to pick winners with a simple and logical class system?
Sure they get their guaranteed % of all pools but if it was easier for the punter to pick winners there would be more of us doing so and that would lower average winning odds [a lot] .....which will turn punters away from the game and lower TAB share prices!

At the same time bamboozling us so we pick less winners, will drive more punters away and lower the share price too ;)

The more we lose, the less we have to invest and turnover / takeout profits suffer.

Already there are so many other ways to lift the average dividend.

Basically, they think it helps the industry, the trainers and owners, but it detracts investment.

& all this when there are a 1000 & 1 other gambling options available to those so inclined, & betfair almost certainly to eventually corner a fair share of current tab markets.

i mean why bang your head against a wall trying to snag(fluke) that elusive 4/5 figure trifecta when for the same outlay you can enter multiple online poker tournaments & win(fluke) a motza?

Trick question... ?
 

Racer

Well I can't offer an opinion on overseas racing, but the reason about 30% of favourites win Australian races is because on average they are given about a 30% chance in the market, isn't it??

As a very quick and dirty example, the average SP for all fav's on the Vic TAB at the city meetings in VIC, NSW, QLD and SA last Saturday 9th Dec was approx $3.09 (32.36%). The Saturday before, 2nd Dec, the figure was approx $3.18 (31.44%). That gives us an average over those two days of 31.9%. I've not deducted the TAB's vig but you get the idea.

In the 62 races run over those two days, 19 Vic TAB favourites won, which is about 30.64%

I'm not somebody that watch's the Fav's specifically. Sometimes I lay them, sometimes I don't. It all depends on how the planets align.

Bye

Pixie

EH??
 

Or the Jockey and horses Biorythym on the day.

Cheers.
darky

Yes, there's a US website that specialises in thoroughbred biorythms. Could be the magic angle ... or maybe not.

Fair enough thanks Pixie, your examples appear to back up your conclusion
and it would be approx. the same idea re. any of the other countries.

Regards.

So I'm relatively new to this racing game.

How exactly does this affect us punters?

I've 8 systems that have worked well over two years of back data and seem to have been working quite well up with the exception of November with real money.

Some of them are based on a speed rating others on the GTX ratings. How will this change affect them? Anyone have any ideas?

Alex.

Alex

I doubt it changes anything at all, although I'm certain some around here would disagree. If you've been collecting data for 2 years you should be able to draw a conclusion yourself. Are your numbers looking any different? Remembering though that there are many, many nag's going around at this time of year.

Pixie.

Me for one Pixie, but naturally I would very much like to be wrong, if you
and Alex are winners then I only wish you both continuing success, and anyone else who can WIN at this time.
I'm old and can't adapt to this new fangled mess, but you both might be young, sharp, and adaptable.

All I say is if you are both winning then it will be in your interests to
check re. any changing situation and the data should tell you if any downturn
is attributable to this new mess, or just simply random, because you and Alex might not go anywhere near the referred to racetypes, and therefore might not experience any real detrimentals.

Alex mentioned something about, until November, hopefully that was just a
fluke off month.
The only thing that tells all is time.

Regards.

It's interesting to note that since the introduction of computers with all the stats. now at our fingertips, the favorite win rate SR hasn't changed a bean.

In other words, the public who's weight of bets decide which horse is the final SP fav. has not improved it's ability in selecting the true SP fav. regardless of all the new high tech info. available.

The same number of favourites win, but you can bet your bottom dollar the prices are a lot worse now. You see the "real good" favourites have crunched in price enormously. The so so favourites have still held their price.
Edges have been ground away with the advent of computers, internet etc.
I know one old guy who had a system that returned around 18% POT over twenty years and in the last ten years it's gone to negative.
Of course, it could just be his system, but it's a very wide ruled one and I can't see why it would change, as the strike rate stayed the same, the odds have been decimated.

I was nodding my head 'Fav. prices going down, doWN, DOWN! YEAH, YES. OATH!" with all that in your post Chrome as I've been on the punt a very long time [about 37 yrs. now] and can relate to that. Then I started thinking about it ...'think' ...'think' ???

Now I'm no great maths. man but my reasoning ability, although mellowed by time a bit, is still pretty sharp and I can't quite get my head around prices going down and fav. SR staying the same due to more info. being available due to Computers etc. [?] Isn't that a mathematical oxymoron?

If the ability to pick winners has stayed the same [same SR as before high tech.] but prices are going down, then that means the number of punters picking [the same] winners has gone up but our ability to pick the CORRECT winner[s] hasn't changed.
In other words, we are still making the same mistakes as pre-HT [high tech.] punters, but just a lot more people [prices going down] are making the same ones!

You see what I mean about the oxymoron bit? It doesn't make sense, as HT should be improving the punter public's accuracy [higher fav. SR] in picking winners, not just increasing the amount of punters in the winner prize pools !

Maybe I just need a BEX and a good lie down [?] :-)

Crash seems to be implying that that an increase in favourite strike rates is a good thing,

Surely the goal is to have racing as competitive as possible? That should help eliminate turnoffs such as small fields, walkovers, an excess of runners on the limit weight, and horses past their prime no longer able to compete. Not to mention the suspicion that certain results have been prearranged by the participants.

With a proper RBP system (as opposed to the one in question) that goal would be approached.

However this desired increased competition would cause a decrease in favourite strike rates.

Hi JF,

No, I'm not implying that at all. I'm just questioning the logic of Chrome's post [an increase in punters nailing the favorite yet there is no increase in the % of favorites winning]. It doesn't make sense. A mathematical oxymoron [?].

I'd be interested in your opinion or if you agree, a considered explanation. Read Chrome's post.

Hi crash,

This is indeed a topic that can be construed many ways and dissected in various manners.

Looking at Favourites, with all the technology and information at hand, one would imagine an increase in strike rate, yet there is none.
My take on this, is that here we have a "group" of horses, which for the most part have and always have had very obvious credentials. Therefore advances in technology are of no real impact on which is selected as favourite.
The advances have merely impacted on price to an extent of firm favourites or easy favourites.

Therefore the strike rate will not change because only a certain percentage of them will ever win.

My opinion is that the actual horses selected have not changed to any real degree to impact the strike rate, but the prices have been impacted.
I have no hard evidence to back this up, it's only observation and conjecture, however, it is my bone of contention that a $1.50 favourite today may well have been $1.60 or $1.70 favourite 50 years ago. A $6.00 favourite may well have been a $4.50 favourite 50 years ago.

In summary, I believe that the market has become a truer reflection of a favourite's chances and that we are getting it more correct, but the strike rate has not and will probably never change.

This is only my take on it, and I have no proof.

Have a great New Year

Chrome,

The question still remains unanswered, why hasn't access to far superior form analysis through high tec. at our fingertips to access and collate a far greater amount of form facts, enabled punters to recognize more than 30% of 'winning horses' ? It should, but it hasn't.
They are not being spotted because they are not being bet into favoritism.

I'd just prices going down is a separate issue and has more to do with a smaller punting market [far greater competition and diversification of the punting dollar especially into new and varied exotics and Sport's betting] and a corresponding increase in bookie overall book percentages and TAB takeout.

Because 70% of those favoured horses will be beaten by horses which should not be favourite, that's just the way it goes.

Of the horses that beat the favourites, no amount of extra information will make them favourite because the group favourite has obvious credentials to make it favourite.

Example:

A horse that won it's last start in a Group1 race gets rolled by a maiden.
No amount of information will make the maiden favourite, even though it won, because the Group 1 horse has the best form, best time, best class, best ratings etc etc.
The only way the maiden will be favourite is if the trackwork is public and has won the trial in better time / lengths. Computers will have no bearing on this.

Even if favourites won 95% of races, you couldn't get it to 100%, no matter what information you had at hand.

I suspect the 30% will never improve because there is still luck, fitness, jockey, going, distance queries attributing to demise, no information can predict luck in running, only impact price.

So prices are affected, not strike rate.

[QUOTE=Chrome Prince].

Of the horses that beat the favourites, no amount of extra information will make them favourite because the group favourite has obvious credentials to make it favourite.
QUOTE]

That doesn't seem to make sense. Favorites don't have the word 'favorite' tattooed on their rump. They are only fav. because the punter using the form info. at hand, bets them into favoritism. No other reason. Punters now have more info. and [therefore] should be betting more eventual winners into outright favoritism shouldn't they?

Perhaps winners nowadays are just harder to spot than they used to be [?] So what high tech. has done has allowed punters to maintain the fav. win % status-quo, which would have otherwise slipped lower.

After further thought on the topic as to why payout prices are lower, we should look at the fact that as there are a lot more race meetings now, the race prize pools are less because the punting $ is being spread further.

It wasn't that many years ago that all we had was basically Wed. and Sat. race meetings. Since then the gambling dollar has spread into pokies, sports betting, tattslotto ect. and a whole new world of exotic bet types beyond the good old tri. and quin.
Due to all that prize pool thinning and punting $ diversification
going on, we now have good reasons for lower payouts. It takes far less betting money to move prices down in a smaller prize pool.

Sound about right?

Class of the race doesn't really matter to me... the challenge is to pick the winner at decent value out of a group of race horses that are similarly graded due to class... ie open class horses race in open class races... maidens run in maidens, class 4 horses run in class 4 races , group horses run in group races.... no matter what the class the challenge remains the same...... it can be just as difficult to pick a winner in a group 1 race (EG FIELDS OF OMAGH 20-1 cox plate; DELTA BLUES 16-1 MELBOURNE CUP or even DANDY ANDY at 200-1 in an Australian Cup) AS IT IS TO PICK A WINNER in a maiden..... MY EXPERIENCE IS THAT LOWER CLASS races especially in country areas in distances from 1300 and above offer the best betting opportunities.....

class (for a while)
 

i think that we place too much emphasis on class
due to the temporary nature of a horses good season or half season they go off quickly and the trick is to pick the next good thing not the last good thing.

the best variables are recent form barrier draw and recent racing (unless short distance) good form and an inside barrier are handy when it comes to getting a price.

in reply to your excellent point CRASH regarding why the flood of information hasn't increased the strike rate of favs winning..my answer would be that corruption in racing prevents the strike rate of favs from increasing despite the apparent increase in knowledge to punters..... also i believe that TOO MUCH CONFIDENCE can be a bad thing in punting... when we have too much information and become so convinced that we have found a certaity or a good thing we can then over bet a horse thus creating a favourite that is essentially overbet and in terms of long term value becomes a false favourite.... so depite rises in form technology perhaps corruption in racing (favs not getting the greatest favours in the run) combined with a new found over confidence (hence creating over bet false favs) combined with the old age constant factor of LUCK means that the winning rate of favs remains static... after all u can watch as many videos as u like and do all the form in the world but u will never be as wise as those who are closest to the horse or are sitting on its back.....

with the flood of "rubbish racing" comes the realisation that most of these races are a lottery, a crap shoot, & the "money" is more often wrong than right, & as most punters are essentially sheep following the money or ratings or tips etc etc without a thought for what might actually be going on, of course the fav's keep on winning as many races as they possibly can

fact would then be that most (if not almost all) of us are fairly useless at what we are trying to do, what other pursuits where a failure rate in excess of 70% would be acceptable (to ourselves) or tolerated (by the missus)?

happy new year

Nothing new about corruption in racing Red Anchor. If anything there is far less of it nowadays [it's still there though] than their used to be before cameras were everywhere and they had vet checks which can pick up any type of drug enhancements. The crooked things still going on in racing though will mostly be happening on a Sat. for sure.
Your right on the money about country racing. I win more money during the week than I ever do on a Sat. In fact all my winning bets in the 'sudden death' comp. were all during the week, not Sat. Cherry picking for for the right horse and odds is the go.

I agree with Topsy about 'class'. It's an elusive thing that comes and goes in a lot of nags. How many Golden Slipper winners every go on to win another decent race and I wouldn't have liked to be on Gold Edition at $!.40 last Sat. [3 failures at 1400m now]. A good way to go broke is chasing the shorts that so called 'class' attracts. I want winners at decent odds and they are usually horses that are beating the 'class' runners :-)

lol. lol

gold edition
 

just a note on my observation of Gold Edition;s run on Saturday.

Not apportioning any fault here but I didnt think the jockey took advantage of his barrier 1 draw. he didnt keep the fence/lead and when he tried not to be locked in on a horse that had prior difficulty with the distance left the fence (too early) and then got done by a horse coming through on the fence.

If he had been beaten by being run down from barrier 1 and holding the fence/lead then I think fair enough but it didnt look good and made it harder for Gold Edition to win (over confidence???)
Disclaimer; I backed neither Gold Edition or the winner.

In the magic millions 1400m race [Gold Edition's target], he is going to have trouble beating Publisher after it's 1400m decisive victory today at Cauilfield.

hooray a jockey with initiative. bounced to the front from way out there and killed em'.
bit different to last time from barrier one and didnt take the front.
very impressed with both the horse and jockey.

Boss falling helped Gold Edition getting across from the outside [helped for sure]. What luck and a huge finishing margin!